Re: [xml-dev] The triples datamodel -- was Re: [xml-dev] Semantic Web permathread, iteration n+1

[Ari Nordström <mayfair@tiscali.se>]

At 15:15 08/06/2004, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:
>At 8:40 AM +0200 6/8/04, Henrik Martensson wrote:
>
>
>>As in having people die in munitions accidents, you mean, because that
>>is the kind of thing that happens when automated systems mess manuals
>>up.
>
>I can see a possibility of this; for instance marking something as a 
>CAUTION or a NOTE instead of a WARNING. However, more often than not the 
>real problem is not that the user mistyped a tag or invented a new tag. It 
>is that they used a valid but wrong tag for the information. For instance, 
>they put the warning in a  PARA instead of a WARNING.


The reason why the (mis-)tagging is a PARA and not a whole new tag, 
invented by an adventurous author, is simply that the system where the 
mistake was made requires validation. If validation wasn't required I'm 
pretty sure there would be a new tag instead. If you know people do this 
kind of thing, you want to remove as many possible mistakes as possible. 
It's a very good reason for validation, and enough motivation for a number 
of "mission-critical" systems, from airplane documentation to armed forces 
field instructions.

See, PARA is bad enough, but it won't lose the information. A new tag just 
might, in some context.


>Even more fundamentally, the real problem here is the necessity of the 
>warning in the first place. Most properly designed systems (munitions may 
>be an exception) should not be able to kill people. There should be 
>nothing in my toaster, computer, or microwave oven that can injure me 
>short of dropping it on my head from a high building. This should be true 
>regardless of what the manual says.

The _system_ doesn't kill anyone, but the things the system is used to 
describe just might do that. Both of my examples above deal with 
information of that nature.

Best,

/Ari